Posted: December 5th, 2014 | No Comments »
#2 -what a great game for Christmas!! Mysteries of Old Peking dates from only 1987 (personally I’m rather alarmed that many web sites refer to its a “vintage” 1987 game!!) and apparently….
As one of the best detectives in Chinatown, you’ll have to solve one of the mysteries in the casebook and reveal the criminal. To get clues, you must go to the different witnesses and interrogate them. You may move the dragons with the help of fortune cookies and prevent the other detectives from getting there before you. When you discover the culprit, you must go to the dragon he is hiding in.
The most important witnesses are the Spy and the Wise Man, so you must reach them as soon as possible in order to get vital information for the case. The Wise Man will tell you which of the witnesses is lying, and the Spy will tell you where the culprit is hiding. But you’ll have to visit the rest of the witnesses around the board to get the description of the culprit.. Does he have glasses, a scar, a mustache or a hat? But beware! Some witnesses will have nothing useful to tell you!
The game includes 3 decoders in order to decipher clues: a red filter to look at general clues, a mirror to look at the “wise man” clue, and a mask card to check the culprit in the casebook.
Posted: December 4th, 2014 | No Comments »
China in the Archives
an RASBJ panel discussion
Saturday December 6th 2:30-4:30 p.m.
The Royal Asiatic Society China, Beijing invites you to a December 6th panel discussion on how hidden nuggets of information about China are revealed through archival research, enriching our understanding of Chinese society today. Panelists include Beijing Postcards co-founder Lars Ulrik Thom, who’ll discuss how Beijing archives have helped enliven his walking tours of old Beijing, and Marie-Anne Souloumiac who was inspired by diary material and archival films to promote the legacy of her late grand-father, the legendary Dutch author, diplomat and Sinologist Robert van Gulik. Ms. Souloumiac recently attended the opening of a permanent exhibition in Chongqing’s Three Gorges Museum dedicated to van Gulik, who wrote the famous Judge Dee detective stories based on the life of a Tang Dynasty Chinese magistrate.
Newsweek’s Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu will moderate the talk.
WHEN: Saturday, December 6th, 2:30-4:30 PM
WHERE: The Courtyard Institute, No.28 Zhong Lao Hutong, Dongcheng District, Beijing. 活动地å€ï¼šåŒ—京市东城区ä¸è€èƒ¡åŒ28å·
MAP: http://www.courtyardinstitute.net/?page_id=360&lang=en
HOW MUCH:Â 30 RMB for members; 60 RMB for all others.
IF YOU HAVEN’T YET RENEWED MEMBERSHIP, NOW’S YOUR CHANCE!Â
RENEW AT THIS EVENT AND ENJOY MEMBERS’ RATES.
RSVP: please email membership@rasbj.org before December 4th, and let us know how many seats to reserve; space may be limited.
Thanks to the Courtyard Institute for providing this venue.
Posted: December 3rd, 2014 | No Comments »
#1 – Shanghai pinball – the Chicago Coin Machine Manufacturing Company started making games in 1932. The Shanghai is a 1948 model pinball machine – sorry, can’t quite get a close up of the patterns on this flyer for the machine….I’ll take one though!
Posted: December 2nd, 2014 | No Comments »
Opened December 1st on our Bodleian Library Advent Calendar (I know, I know…) and got Chiang Yee’s The Silent Traveller in Oxford (1944) – the calendar has an Oxford theme rather than a China theme (I think, anyway). Nice start to the month anyway – it is a lovely book. For those not in the know – Chiang Yee spent 1933-1955 in England as a poet, author, painter and calligrapher. His silent traveller series is both a wonderful record of England at that time and during the War, as well as being a fascinating look at England and the English through Chinese eyes. Later Chiang Yee centured further, to America and Japan but his series of books on England are by far the best known. The cover design (first edition below) is by Chiang.
Posted: December 1st, 2014 | No Comments »
CT Loo keeps popping up into my life. Years ago wandering Paris I discovered his incredible old gallery – now the CT Loo Gallery near the Parc Monseau (see post here) – then various objets that interested traced back to Loo’s collections. More recently I was exploring the connections the Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi made while in Peking in 1930 and found that the Loo family were among his friends while he was residing in the city (this piece of research will be out soon hopefully in the new Royal Asiatic Society China’s next Journal when it’s published). And most recently David Piling wrote a long piece on Loo for the Weekend FT (link and some additional information here). Now I note that French speaking Shanghai blogger Hugues Martin has written about Loo too and the French language biography of the man from Geraldine Lenain – Monsieur Loo – Le Roman d’un Marchand d’art Asiatique. But it’s only in French so any English language publishers reading this post – chase the rights and get it translated pronto please. Loo is a fascinating personage to people with my interests but also a very controversial one in the Chinese art, collecting and heritage world…a fuller understanding of the man and his milieu would be much appreciated and a great read….
CT Loo’s 1926 “Pagoda”, now the CT Loo Gallery on rue de Coucelles, Paris
Posted: November 30th, 2014 | No Comments »
A slight diversion to the Philippines today to look at the El Hogar building which is, according to Filipino preservationists, currently under threat. The El Hogar was Manila’s first “skyscraper” built in 1914 in the beaux-arts style, popular during the American occupation of the archipelago, and designed by local architects. It was actually constructed as a wedding present for a daughter of the powerful Ayala family. It fronts impressively onto the Pasag River and forms a crucial element of Manila’s skyline still.
To say it is a treasure for Manila is to understate the buildings grandeur and it is preserved supposedly as part of the historic Binondo District and Escolta Street. Preservationists are worried that the building’s new owners have not been named and their intentions are unclear. The city government appears somewhat reticent to say whether a demolition permit has been issued or not. More from the Philippines Daily Enquirer here. Important to note that the Pacific Commercial Company Building nearby and erected in 1922 has been praised as a great example of “adaptive reuse”. The same is clearly possible for El Hogar. Here’s hoping and supporting the Manila preservationists.
Posted: November 29th, 2014 | No Comments »
RAS FILM CLUB
Sunday 30 November
Time: 6.30pm for 7.00pm
 Chai Lounge at Chai Living Gallery, 370 Suzhou Bei Lu. It’s in the Embankment Building close to Henan Lu.
 河滨大楼，è‹å·žåŒ—è·¯370底楼 （在四å·è·¯æ²³å—路之间)
  
“Street Angel,” “Malu tianshi,” 1937
Directed by Yuan Muzhi
Written by Yuan Muzhi
Produced by Mingxing Film Company
Mandarin with English subtitles
Cinematography: Wu Yinxian
Original music: He Luting, lyrics by Tian Han
Cast: Zhou Xuan (Xiao Hong), Zhao Dan (Xiao Chen), Zhao Huishen (Xiao Yun), Wei Heling (Wang)
One of China’s early sound films, loosely based on Frank Borage’s 1927 silent film “Seventh Heaven,” “Street Angel” is considered a great classic ‘leftist’ melodrama made during Shanghai’s Golden Age of cinema. The story revolves around two sisters (Xiao Yun and Xiao Hong) who have fled the war with Japan in the North to land in Shanghai’s underworld. They live together in a teahouse amongst the slums and barely earn their keep by singing and, for Xiao Yun, prostitution. Xiao Hong is befriended by a street musician, Xiao Chen, who determines to rescue her from her fate of being sold into marriage (and probably prostitution) with the wealthy Mr Gu. An astounding mixture of satire, social realism, slapstick comedy and music, “Street Angel” provides a portrait of street life in 1930’s Shanghai and a glimpse of the creative talent within Shanghai’s film industry.
 “Street Angel” launched the career of its leading lady Zhou Xuan whose voice became synonymous with Shanghai popular music of the day. In the film she sings two of her most famous hits, Song of the Four Seasons and The Wandering Songstress, both of which reference the political turbulence of the late 1930’s through Tian Han’s lyrics. The innovative use of music as a device to convey political messages to the audience and to add to the character of the actors set this film apart from its predecessors.
 Perhaps most often cited for its opening sequence in which Yuan Muzhi made use of the montage technique popularised in the Soviet Union to create a visual and musical portrait of the social conditions prevalent in Shanghai. A travelling night scene in the city, punctuated by a dizzying array of neon signs in English and Chinese accompanied by frenzied music conveys the electrifying energy of Shanghai nightlife. Dissolving into daytime, the camera tilts upwards as it pans an art deco building to rest on a western clock, the icon of modernism. Scenes of automobiles, buses, ships and colonial monuments culminate in a slow shot of the Hong Kong Bank and the Customs House on the Bund. Different types of religious buildings shift the focus from commercial life to spiritual life whilst retaining the influences from all over the world on 
Shanghai life.
 As clocks continue to chime and dusk falls fireworks cascade over pleasure seekers filling the dance halls and the increasingly frantic musical accompaniment collapses into silence over the title of the film. The result is a feeling that Shanghai, full of competing influences and rushing forwards is fighting against time to shake off its colonialism and to modernise. The perspective and the pace then shifts to street level as the camera follows a traditional Chinese wedding procession into the lanes of Shanghai and away from decadence. Here the houses are densely populated and low-rise. People are lining the street and hanging over balconies to watch the procession with the bride in a palanquin. Amongst the crowd, playing a trumpet appears our first glimpse of Xiao Chen and above him on the balcony emerges Xiao Hong and the dialogue begins. As in the theatre that preceded cinema, the female looks down onto the male actor and catches his attention, drawing the audience into the story. This is the first of several references to theatre that Yuan Mizhu uses within the film to dramatic effect.
 Within these opening moments the director succeeds in displaying Shanghai’s history, it’s social complexity and it’s physical distinctions between colonial and neighbourhood spaces before focusing upon a story that revolves around two related social issues of the time, migration and prostitution.
Running time; 91 minutes
Our evening will be hosted at CHAI Living Gallery.  They kindly provide the venue, equipment, a discount on the menu AND specially prepared popcorn for RAS members to enjoy while watching the movie.
Donation suggested: RMB 20.00 (RAS members) and RMB 50.00 (non-members). Those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption, prior to the RAS Film Club viewing. Membership applications and membership renewals will be available at this event.
RSVP: “Reply” to this email or write to filmclub@royalasiaticsociety.org.cn
RSVP ESSENTIAL AS SPACE IS LIMITED!
RAS MEMBERS WILL RECEIVE PRIORITY BOOKING UNTIL FRIDAYÂ November 28
